Playing With Words

Tonight and tomorrow night, Splendor is taken over by Anne Litvinenko and her trio Kalea. This intriguing group of cello, violin and flute both composes and improvises their way through classical, folk, experimental and contemporary music, while often teaming up with artists from other disciplines. For their new project Playing With Words, they are joined by UK-based artist Phoebe Pryor. Inspired on Julian Rosefeldt’s film "Manifesto", Playing with Words reimagines music's pasts through literature, original compositions, improvisation, and live drawing. Romanticism, Existentialism, Symbolism, Imagism, Cubism, Futurism... just about every art and literature movement of the 19th and 20th centuries will pass by, while inspiration is drawn from the poetry and writings of J.W. Goethe, Søren Kierkegaard, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and W.H. Auden, among many others.

“Indeed, if it were not for you, what would I be? What is the little I have done except to arouse you?” - Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass * * *

Playing with Words is in fact the redeeming of the Start in Splendor Prize, which was awarded to Anna Litvinenko in 2019. The Start in Splendor Prize, part of the Dutch National Cello Competition, is awarded on behalf of the Cello Competition, the Amsterdam Cello Biënnale and Splendor Amsterdam. It is aimed at promising young cellists who – besides an exceptional ability on their instrument – show extraordinary programming talents. The strongest, most creative performance concept is awarded the Start in Splendor Prize: they are granted the means to realise and produce their unique concert programme in Splendor. Previous winners were Lidy Blijdorp (2016) and Kalle de Bie (2017).

Kalea:
Anna Litvinenko - cello
Katie Macdonald - flute
Beatriz Rola - violin
Phoebe Pryor - live drawing

Playing with Words will also be performed on
June 10 at 21:00, an on
June 11 at 21:00 (for tickets, click below).